closing time

Noun

closing time (countable and uncountable, plural closing times)

1. (Canada, UK) The time when a public house or restaurant closes. Used to invite final drink orders.
   • Sometimes when you sit in a restaurant, still stuffing yourself half an hour after closing time, you feel that the tired waiter at your side must surely be despising you.1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIV, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC
   • all the women tear their blouses off / and the men they dance on the polka-dots / and it's partner found, it's partner lost / and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops: / it's closing time1992, Leonard Cohen, “Closing Time”, in The Future

   Antonyms:

   opening time

2. (UK, figuratively) Used to suggest that a deadline for action is imminent.
   • No. You're supposed to die for me. By the way, I did think of asking you to join my little scheme, but somehow I knew that 007's loyalty was always to the mission — never to his friend. Closing time, James. Last call.1995, Jeffrey Caine, Bruce Feirstein, GoldenEye, spoken by Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean)
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see closing, time.